THE DISAPPEARING OASES OF MOROCCO

 The IPCC reports on climate change have continually recognised the outer edges of the Sahara Desert in West and Northern Africa as susceptible to significant environmental change due to persistent temperature increases. Rising temperatures have resulted in Saharan water systems being altered at a frightening rate and the effects are observable through a precipitously changing environment. The rate of desertification in North African countries such as Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia is increasing, transitory waterways are drying up more rapidly and most notably, oases are disappearing (IPPC, 2014).

Figure 1: Annual observed temperature & precipitation changes from the 20th-21st century across Africa (source).

Morocco has seen a wide scale warming trend throughout the 21^st century, corresponding with some areas of lower-than-average precipitation. The IPCC calculates that since the 1960s, a temperature increase of 1° C has been observed throughout the entire country. Projections show a further increase of 1 to 1.5° C until 2050 (IPCC 2019). Consequences are visible with Morocco experiencing increased drought, heat waves, flooding, shifting rainfall patterns and extreme rainfall events. This has drastic impacts on the food security and livelihoods of communities living in Morocco (DW 2020). The oasis town of M'Hamid El Ghizlane in the Southeast of Morocco is home to approximately 7500 people who rely on the oasis to sustain their crops, cattle and livelihoods (Thelen, 2019). However, recent climatic trends threaten the sustainability of these practices. In particular, desertification has increased, and depleting groundwater levels have made reforestation schemes unsuccessful in combatting the spread of the Sahara. Increasing temperatures have also resulted in higher rates of evapotranspiration and more instances of salinisation, creating issues for the subsistence agricultural industry (Thelen, 2019).

Figure 2: image of M’Hamid El Ghizland –  the disappearing oasis (source)

Due to the combination of decreasing and irregular rainfall and lower groundwater levels, the local oases of Morocco are drying up. In the 1980s, the M’Hamid El Ghizland oasis stretched across 9,000 acres, but today only one third of the oasis remains, with the rest having vanished under advancing sand dunes (Thelen, 2019). Figure 1 shows that the western fringe of the Sahara Desert is highly susceptible to environmental change and this is largely driven by the climatic changes that have occurred in Morocco over recent decades. The average summer temperature in the Maghreb region is predicted to rise twice as much as the global average. The drying up of oases is also likely to have a large anthropogenic effect given that around 1.7 million Moroccans live in oases like M'Hamid El Ghizlane and could suffer displacement (Hossard et al 2021). While Morocco’s population has been growing for decades, the oasis lost one-quarter of its population between 1982 and 2014, and today more than two-thirds of all families in the M’Hamid region rely on remittance payments send from relatives living abroad (Thelen, 2019). For decades, the M’Hamid oasis was lush and full of life, with inhabitants growing a wide variety of fruit and vegetables and herding and farming a range of livestock. The oasis is now, however arid and sparse, and much of the fragile ecosystem is rapidly vanishing amongst the advancing Sahara.

The Future of the oasis

Figure 3: A herb plot planted by farmers in M’Hamid El Ghizland.

It is expected that environmental change will have a continued impact in Morocco in the years to come, however there are actions that can be taken to slow rates of desertification. While reforesting the landscape is difficult due to the lack of water to sustain new forms of vegetation, measures such as employing plant-breeding techniques to make oasis crops more resistant to droughts and higher temperatures and cultivating water efficient plants can be taken in order to replenish oases’. The U.N. is currently helping Moroccan farmers to grow culturally important, water-efficient medicinal plants such as mint, thyme, basil and rosemary in place of more water intensive crops such as wheat and barley (Thelen, 2019). The plants can be used to make medicinal teas and cosmetics for sale, and such products also sell for a higher price than traditionally grown crops. Thus, simple steps can be taken to help the ecosystem retain moisture and lessen the effects of climate change for local communities in Morocco.